U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Public Release: 12-Mar-2010

Nature
Foiling an attack on general relativity
In an attempt to explain away invisible dark matter and dark energy, some theorists have offered modified theories of gravity that try to improve on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. A new study based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and inspired by the work of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory cosmologist Uros Seljak indicates that at least one of these alternate theories is wrong.

Public Release: 11-Mar-2010

Science
Berkeley scientists find new way to get physical in the fight against cancer
Berkeley Lab researchers have shown that the biochemical activity of a key player in cancer metastasis can be altered by the application of a direct physical force. This new way in which cells can sense and respond to physical forces presents a new road for future cancer therapies

Bay Area Physical Sciences-Oncology Center

Public Release: 11-Mar-2010
PartTec to market SNS-developed neutron detector system
PartTec, an Indiana-based manufacturer of radiation detection equipment, has signed an agreement to manufacture and market an advanced neutron detector system developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Public Release: 11-Mar-2010

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Scavenging energy waste to turn water into hydrogen fuel
Materials scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have designed a way to harvest small amounts of waste energy and harness them to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel.

UW-Madison Graduate School, National Science Foundation, NASA Astrobiology Institute, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 11-Mar-2010

Nature Chemistry
Behavior of single protein observed in unprecedented detail by Stanford chemists
Scrutinizing a single molecule for more than a few milliseconds used to require effectively "stapling" it down, inhibiting its normal behavior. Now, using a technique recently developed in their lab, Stanford chemists have for the first time confined a protein (one involved in photosynthesis), observed its behavior for more than a second and learned things about it that could influence solar energy technology and biofuels.

US Department of Energy, NIH/National Center for Research Resources

Public Release: 11-Mar-2010

Science
Water oxidation advance boosts potential for solar fuel
Emory University chemists have developed the most potent homogeneous catalyst known for water oxidation, considered a crucial component for generating clean hydrogen fuel using only water and sunlight. The breakthrough, published March 11 in Science, was made in collaboration with the Paris Institute of Molecular Chemistry. The fastest, carbon-free molecular water oxidation catalyst to date "has really upped the standard from the other known homogeneous WOCs," said Emory chemist Craig Hill, whose lab led the effort.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 9-Mar-2010
'The Rosenfeld' named after California's godfather of energy efficiency
A group of scientists propose today in a refereed article in Environmental Research Letters to define the Rosenfeld as a unit for electricity savings, after the man seen by many people as the godfather of energy efficiency, Arthur Rosenfeld.

Public Release: 8-Mar-2010
ORNL earns project of year award from tech transfer group
A technology that can enhance collecting of data from studying the compositions on a material surface has earned the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory the Excellence in Technology Transfer Project of the Year Award from the Southeast Region of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer.

Public Release: 7-Mar-2010

Nature Nanotechnology
MIT scientists transform polyethylene into a heat-conducting material
Most polymers -- materials made of long, chain-like molecules -- are very good insulators for both heat and electricity. But an MIT team has found a way to transform the most widely used polymer, polyethylene, into a material that conducts heat just as well as most metals, yet remains an electrical insulator.

National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 4-Mar-2010

Science Express
Exotic antimatter detected at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
Scientists studying high-energy collisions of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory have found the most massive antinucleus discovered to date. The new antinucleus is a negatively charged state of antimatter and the first antinucleus containing an anti-strange quark, thus opening a new frontier in physics.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 4-Mar-2010

Science
Kent State researchers play lead role in significant new physics discovery
Ten Kent State University researchers are part of a team of international scientists who have discovered the most massive antinucleus discovered to date. They are part of an international team of scientists studying high-energy collision of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collidor, a 2.4 mile-circumference particle accelerator at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 4-Mar-2010

Nano Letters
Trapping sunlight with silicon nanowires
Berkeley Lab researchers have found a better way to trap light in photovoltaic cells through the use of vertical arrays of silicon nanowires. This could substantially cut the costs of solar electric power by reducing the quantity and quality of silicon needed for efficient solar panels.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 4-Mar-2010
Engineering team developing helicopter that would investigate nuclear disasters
Students at Virginia Tech's Unmanned Systems Laboratory are perfecting an autonomous helicopter they hope will never be used for its intended purpose. The helicopter's main mission would be to assist military investigators in the unthinkable: enter an American city after a nuclear attack in order to detect radiation levels, map and photograph damage.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 4-Mar-2010

Cell
Genome sequencing complete on plodding amoeba that flips into free-swimming flagellate
Scientists with the Joint Genome Institute have sequenced the genome of a weird creature that exists as an amoeba until the food runs out, then turns into a two-tailed swimmer to find new hunting grounds. The organism, Naegleria, is an early eurkaryote -- a cell with a nucleus and internal organs -- and could shed light on the origin of complex cells like those in humans, according to an analysis led by UC Berkeley biologists and bioinformaticists.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 3-Mar-2010

Nature Medicine
HIV vaccine strategy expands immune responses
Two teams of researchers -- including Los Alamos National Laboratory theoretical biologists Bette Korber, Will Fischer, Sydeaka Watson, and James Szinger -- have announced an HIV vaccination strategy that has been shown to expand the breadth and depth of immune responses in rhesus monkeys. Rhesus monkeys provide the best animal model currently available for testing HIV vaccines.

Public Release: 2-Mar-2010
Story tips from the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, March 2010
Police searching for victims in clandestine graves could soon have a new tool that will make their task considerably easier. Unscrupulous Internet service providers will have no place to hide because of a ranking system conceived by researchers at ORNL and Indiana University. Ability and reputation are the qualities that draw industrial users to ORNL's Building Technologies Research and Integration Center. A GM-led research team is using the world's fastest supercomputer to advance the cause of vehicle efficiency.

Public Release: 1-Mar-2010

Nature Materials
Rice researchers make graphene hybrid
Rice University researchers have found a way to stitch graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) into a two-dimensional quilt that offers new paths of exploration for materials scientists.

Rice University, US Office of Naval Research, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 1-Mar-2010

Astrophysical Journal
Astronomically large lenses measure the age and size of the universe
Using entire galaxies as lenses to look at other galaxies, researchers have a newly precise way to measure the size and age of the universe and how rapidly it is expanding. The measurement determines a value for the Hubble constant, which indicates the size of the universe, and confirms the age of the universe as 13.75 billion years old, within 170 million years. The results also confirm the strength of dark energy, responsible for accelerating the expansion of the universe.

Public Release: 1-Mar-2010

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
El Ni�o and a pathogen killed Costa Rican toad, study finds
Scientists broadly agree that global warming may threaten the survival of many plant and animal species; but global warming did not kill the Monteverde golden toad, an often cited example of climate-triggered extinction, says a new study.

National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy

Public Release: 26-Feb-2010
4 ORNL researchers named American Physical Society fellows
Four scientists at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been named fellows of the American Physical Society.

Public Release: 25-Feb-2010

Nano Letters
Scientists glimpse nanobubbles on super nonstick surfaces
Scientists at Brookhaven Lab have obtained the first glimpse of minuscule air bubbles that keep water from wetting a super nonstick surface. The research could lead to a new class of nonstick materials for a range of applications, including improved-efficiency power plants, speedier boats and surfaces that are resistant to contamination by germs.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 25-Feb-2010

Science Express
First measurement of the age of cometary material
Though comets are thought to be some of the oldest, most primitive bodies in the solar system, new research on comet Wild 2 indicates that inner solar system material was transported to the comet-forming region at least 1.7 million years after the formation of the oldest solar system solids.

Public Release: 24-Feb-2010

Nature
More tropical cyclones in past could play role in warmer future
More frequent tropical cyclones in Earth's ancient past contributed to persistent El Ni�o-like conditions, according to a team of climate scientists led by Yale University. Their findings could have implications for the planet's future as global temperatures continue to rise due to climate change.

National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Public Release: 23-Feb-2010

Physical Review Letters
Study quantifies the electron transport effects of placing metal contacts onto graphene
Using large-scale supercomputer calculations, researchers have analyzed how the placement of metallic contacts on graphene changes the electron transport properties of the material as a factor of junction length, width and orientation.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 23-Feb-2010
2010 DOE INCITE projects allocated at ORNL
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers will lead projects that have been awarded a total of 251 million processor hours of computing time on supercomputers located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.

US Department of Energy